What is Christology?
Christology is the study of who Jesus Christ is — not first what He did, but who the Person is who did it. The whole question turns on holding two facts together at once: that He is truly God and truly man, and yet one undivided Person.
The Subject
Writers in this collection treat "the doctrine of Christ" as a defined body of truth, with the Person of Christ at its centre. One summary lists what belongs to it:
W. R. DronsfieldThe truth of the Person of Christ is vital. He is truly and distinctly God — really and distinctly Man — yet One Person indivisible; the Triune God — one God, three Persons, each Person distinct, yet wholly God: eternal divine relationships — the third verse of this letter calls Him the Son of the Father, the only place where this expression occurs: His atoning work; salvation by faith and not by works — all these are surely the doctrine of Christ.
Two Natures, One Person
The central statement is that becoming man cost Christ nothing of what He was as God. Neither nature absorbs or alters the other:
William KellyThis becomes all the more remarkable because He chose, for the deepest purposes, to become true man. This, however, did not touch His deity; for the incarnation does not mean Godhead swallowed up by humanity, but humanity taken into everlasting union with Godhead, each nature remaining in its own perfectness, not changed into something else, but together making up the one Person of Christ.
Two Errors To Avoid
Christology has always been shaped by what it refuses. There are two opposite mistakes — splitting Him into two persons, or blending the natures into a mixture:
Truth & TestimonyThe opposite error to saying that He is two persons is to say that His two natures have combined into one. It was an ancient heresy that the two natures, Manhood and Deity, merged together. For this reason the writer does not like the expression "the God-man". It suggests to him (though not to many orthodox Christians) that He is half man and half God. Such an idea must be resisted. He is wholly Man and wholly God... The unity consists not in a blending of essence, but in the oneness of His Person.
Note that the objection to the phrase "God-man" is one writer's preference, not a point all commentators press.
Why Both Sides Must Stand
The two natures are not a puzzle for specialists. Salvation itself depends on both being real:
Edward DennettBut it is essential that we hold fast both His true Divinity and His equally true humanity. For had He not been true man, He could not have been a sacrifice for sin; and had He not been God, His sacrifice could not have been available for all. Satan knows this, and so in every age he has sought to undermine one or the other of these truths, planting doubts sometimes about His humanity and sometimes about His Divinity... This truth lies at the foundation of redemption, and indeed gives redemption its character.
The Worth Of The Work
There is a further reason the Person comes before the work. What Christ accomplished carries the weight of who He is:
The Bible TreasuryIt is evident that the value of the work in the sight of God depends on the glory of the Person who did it. It is so even among men. The man who supposes that an action depends only on itself, and not also on the person who does it, knows nothing as he ought to know... Now this shows what an immense source of strength and blessing it is for the Christian to hold fast the eternal glory of the Person of Jesus.
Where Study Must Stop
Christology also has a fixed limit, drawn by Christ's own words that no one knows the Son except the Father. Crossing that line has a track record:
A. J. Pollock"No one knows the Son except the Father" (Matthew 11:27) is a wonderful statement, settling once and for all the "this far and no further" of our knowledge in this direction. Nearly all the great heresies that have torn the Church of God from the time of Arius onward have started in faulty and speculative theories about the truth of Christ's Person. Our only safe course is to stay with the very words of Scripture, and to refuse to speculate into mysteries that have not been revealed.
The Test Of Teaching
Because the Person is central, He becomes the measuring line for every teacher and every spirit:
The Christian's FriendBut a certain test is given by which the spirits may be proved — that is, Jesus Christ come in flesh — and every spirit that would take away in the least degree anything from the divine or human glory of our Lord is not of God.
Not A System But A Person
Finally, the aim of the study is not a finished diagram. It is attachment to someone living:
W. T. P. WolstonIt is a question all through of a Person. It is an immense thing to know that Christianity is not a question of doctrines, but of a Person, and of the heart being attached to a Person. It is not the head agreeing to a scheme of truth, but truth wrapped up in the Person of a living Man, and the heart attached to that Person.
Summary
- Person — Christology asks who Christ is: truly God, truly man, one indivisible Person, with each nature remaining fully itself.
- Person guarded — Two errors sit on either side of the road: dividing Him into two persons, or blending the two natures into a mixture.
- Person and redemption — Drop His manhood and there is no sacrifice; drop His deity and the sacrifice cannot reach everyone.
- Person and value — The worth of His work before God rests on the glory of the One who did it.
- Person and limits — Only the Father knows the Son; the heresies came from speculating past that line, so the safe path is Scripture's own words, and worship rather than dissection.